What/where Xcode 4.0.2 for Macports install in Snow Leopard?

[Ned Deily]

In article <F0CA972E-2C36-4347-9D09-544CD75645D0 at gmail.com>,
 Dominik Reichardt <domiman at gmail.com> wrote:

> Yes if you want to purchase it now you can't 
> BUT if you got it back then it still shows in the purchase tab of the app 
> store app as "Xcode for Snow Leopard". At least it does show for me and also 
> shows as updated, so I guess it's the same as the one you can get from the 
> developer page.

Interesting!  I didn't purchase Xcode 4 for Snow Leopard through the App 
Store when it was available so I haven't been able to verify this 
myself.  I've seen conflicting reports from others who did.

What I think everyone agrees on is that, if you did not purchase Xcode 
4.0 for SL when it was available prior to the release of Lion, you can 
no longer purchase it through the Mac App Store - period.  The open 
question - and one that I would love to get a definitive answer to - is, 
if you *did* purchase Xcode 4.0 for SL while it was for sale in the App 
Store *and* you are still running SL, what is now available to you for 
downloads for SL from the App Store?  Is it:

1) still Xcode 4.0 for SL
2) Xcode 4.x for SL
3) Xcode 4.x for Lion
4) none of the above

Can anyone else who is still running 10.6 SL and who purchased Xcode 4 
through the App Store say what happens when they try to download Xcode 4 
from the App Store now (or since Xcode 4.2 was released)?

In any case, for most users, I would still recommend sticking with Xcode 
3 for 10.6 SL.  That's what 10.6 itself was built with.  There are some 
specific use cases where you really need to use Xcode 3 on 10.6, for 
example, if you are trying to build something on 10.6 to run on 10.5 or 
older versions of OS X and need to support all machines (i.e. PPC-based 
ones).  You can even get into trouble with things like installing C 
extension modules for the Apple-supplied system Python, because most 
system software on 10.6 includes PPC archs for compatibility.  Yes, 
there are workarounds for many of these issues but, by using Xcode 3, 
you avoid the problems altogether.

The other solution is to join Apple's paid Mac Developers program which 
I gather does make newer versions of Xcode available for 10.6.  But not 
everyone is willing or able to do that.

-- 
 Ned Deily,
 nad at acm.org